Sunday, October 29, 2006 Tabada: Misfits at play By Mayette Q. Tabada Matamata
BOYS will be boys.
Some guys though might have to sprint up the hard road to become real men soon or else.
One hopes this realization has dawned, even if belatedly, to the two policemen being investigated for using an official vehicle for a personal visit to a motel on official time.
I watched on television PO2 Junicar Estiñoso insist that an attack of diarrhea forced him to use the motel facilities. If he was making a “clean breast” of things, he was citing the wrong piece of his anatomy.
Someone must tip off hopefuls trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes that rapid-fire blinking while answering a reporter’s questions is not the best technique to crawl back to credibility.
The public cover-up, whether done by greater or lesser misfits, goes to show that telling the truth is considered as inimical to “heel preservation.”
If a misfit will ever slash his or her own throat by owning to the truth in public, you can be assured it wasn’t intentional.
According to the code of scoundrels, the second most dignified exit is to be kicked out of office while protesting innocence to the last breath.
Most dignified, of course, is to be spared the indignity of punishment, never mind exposure.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña wants Estiñoso terminated from the service and PO1 MC Stuart Balang, transferred back to Mindanao.
Balang was at the wheel of Patrol Car 004, newly purchased by the city government, after Estiñoso got off at the motel in the North Reclamation Area before 6 a.m. The patrol car bumped a parked taxi, denting the side panel.
Balang has pleaded that he was just ordered by his superior, Estiñoso, to drive the car. INQ7 quoted Osmeña as saying: “I want to make it clear to all policemen, if you follow illegal orders, I will run after your neck. Don’t say ‘I was told to do it’.”
While some alibis show impressive longevity, there are limits to the layers of mud one can apply to cover up the original sin.
For this reason, it is interesting to follow the recent furor over photos showing German soldiers posing with skulls in Afghanistan.
Last Oct. 25, 2006, the BBC News ran a story about Germany’s outrage after the tabloid Bild published pictures of German troops stationed in Afghanistan in 2003.
One of the photographs shows a soldier holding a skull next to his exposed penis. It is speculated that the desecrated skulls came from a mass grave. What old pretext or fresh lie will the soldiers use to defend the offensive prank?
“Exhibit A shows male adaptive reflexes to war. Before: live penis. After: bonehead.”
Given the masculine propensity to play in ignorance of ethics, law and public taste, should selective emasculation be considered to cure public lying?
Since the Aristotelian ideal of the Golden Mean advocates swinging away from all extremes, it is only essential that we understand the reasons why some boys will always be boys.
Balang is one of 400 out-of-town policemen reinforcing the local peacekeeping force for the coming Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in December.
According to the BBC, the suspected soldiers involved in the “schock-fotos” row were among the 2,800 German troops stationed in Afghanistan within Nato's International Security Assistance Force.
“Unlike British, American and Canadian troops, who are fighting the Taliban in the south, the Germans are based in the relative calm of the capital Kabul and in the north of the country.”
Waiting and idleness make monkeys out of men. Therefore, a diversion is needed to engage their imagination and resources.
While waiting for terrorists to drive up with a baggage full of detonator caps and whatnot, perhaps the security reinforcements around Cebu City can take up reading or knitting.
